A Microsoft Enterprise Strategy Program
An Enterprise
Paper Strategy Program Paper
Social computing in the enterprise
Building a social computing strategy
Abstract
This document describes the Microsoft vision for social computing in the enterprise and explains how to
build an effective social computing strategy. It is designed to help C level executives and enterprise
architects appreciate the value of enterprise social computing, understand the Microsoft vision for
enterprise social computing, and grasp what’s involved in building a strategy for social computing in the
enterprise.
Author(s)
Marc Ashbrook, Architect, Microsoft
Todd Ray, Senior Business Strategy Consultant, Microsoft
Publication date
December 2012
Version
1.5
We welcome your feedback on this paper. Please send your comments to the Microsoft Services
Enterprise Architecture IP team at [email protected].
Social computing in the enterprise
Building a social computing strategy
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the following people who contributed to, reviewed, and helped improve
this whitepaper.
Contributors:
Ming-Li Chai, Sr. User Researcher, OCDG Design, Microsoft Corporation
Moritz Berger, Director Business Architecture, Productivity Business Architecture, Microsoft Corporation
Thanks also to:
Hilary Long, Attorney, LCA, Microsoft Corporation
Maura FitzGerald, Sr. Program Manager Lead, SharePoint, Microsoft Corporation
Harald Becker, Sr. Product Planner, Office, Microsoft Corporation
Rob Dendtler, Enterprise Architect, MCS, Microsoft Corporation
Ben Johnston, Enterprise Architect, AU Enterprise Architects, Microsoft Corporation
Roy King, Sr. Partner/Channel Marketing Manager, Lync, Microsoft Corporation
Stefan Fischer, Enterprise Strategy Architect, MCS, Microsoft Corporation
Linda Chandler, Enterprise Architect, MCS, Microsoft Corporation
Bart Bischoff, Director Program Management, Business Productivity, MCS, Microsoft Corporation
Robert Standefer, IP Development Architect, Enterprise Strategy, Microsoft Corporation
Mike Wise, IP Development Architect, Enterprise Strategy, Microsoft Corporation
George Anderson, IP Development Director, Enterprise Strategy, Microsoft Corporation
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Social computing in the enterprise
Building a social computing strategy
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Social computing in the enterprise
Building a social computing strategy
Table of contents
1
Executive summary ..................................................................................................................................... 1
2
The value of social computing .................................................................................................................. 2
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
Finding the person who knows the answer .......................................................................................................... 2
Working within communities to get things done .............................................................................................. 2
Increasing organizational memory ........................................................................................................................... 3
Attracting and retaining talent................................................................................................................................... 3
Improving sales and service ........................................................................................................................................ 3
3
The Microsoft vision for social computing ............................................................................................. 4
4
Creating a social computing strategy ...................................................................................................... 6
4.1
4.2
4.3
Strategy rationalization ................................................................................................................................................. 7
Social valuation ................................................................................................................................................................ 9
Business transformation planning ..........................................................................................................................11
5
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 13
6
Resources .................................................................................................................................................... 15
6.1
6.2
7
Microsoft websites ........................................................................................................................................................15
Microsoft blogs ..............................................................................................................................................................15
Collaboration Capability Value Measurement ...................................................................................... 16
7.1
Concept References ......................................................................................................................................................16
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Social computing in the enterprise
Building a social computing strategy
1
Executive summary
Enterprise social computing redefines how IT delivers value at the personal and organizational level. At
the personal level, social computing provides a richer, more flexible and customizable environment that
supports new ways of “getting things done” for information-related and collaborative work. Gartner states
that “By 2015, context-aware personalization will be expected by consumers and will highly leverage
1
social media.” In addition to technical features and capabilities, social computing implies more personal
connections among people, information, and activities.
Deploying newer technologies is not necessarily beneficial in and of itself, although doing so may extend
users’ comfort zone with collaboration and content creation tools. Creating a social computing strategy
provides the ability to understand and measure return on investment (ROI), establish common standards,
support high-value scenarios such as core process execution, and management of risk and compliance.
According to Gartner “Now organizations want to use social media to advance their business goals in a
measurable way. This objective requires a strategy that takes into account how the enterprise organizes
2
itself and where it needs to focus its efforts.” For organizations, any approach to enterprise social
computing requires inclusion of business architecture (people, processes, organization, and incentives),
information architecture (information management, access control, and classification), and technical
architecture (including device support and integration). Through the explicit design of a social ecosystem,
organizations build value by creating social solutions that are based on managed portfolios of social
capabilities and building blocks. Many proof points exist to demonstrate the very broad range of
addressable benefits as organizations share their successes in areas from enterprise resource planning
3,
4
5
(ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) to digital marketing and employee engagement
6
platforms. For example, “Gartner discussions with CIOs have revealed that by leveraging social
computing, the expectations of users can be monitored through the ERP life cycle. This can help in setting
the right user expectations, and thereby improve usability, which is a critical factor for successful ERP
7
implementation.”
This paper explains the challenges and opportunities in social computing, and it describes the key
components that make social computing initiatives successful. It discusses how social computing adds
value in the organization by empowering people to identify and engage experts, collaborate across
boundaries, increase and preserve communal knowledge, attract and retain talent, and improve sales and
service. It also presents the Microsoft vision of enterprise social computing, which focuses on moving
from personal computing to interpersonal computing, where Share is the new Save. Finally, it discusses
how to create a strategy for enterprise social computing by tying benefits to business objectives,
1
William Clark, David W. Cearley, Avivah Litan, “Context-Aware Computing and Social Media Are Transforming the User Experience,”
Gartner Inc., February 2012.
2
Carol Rozwell, “2012 Strategic Road Map for Business Gets Social,” Gartner Inc., January 2012.
3
China Martens, “Emerging Trends: Social Collaboration Is Poised To Accelerate ERP Business Processes,” Forrester Research Inc.,
December 2011.
4
Microsoft case study, “Healthcare Solutions Provider Eases Customer Data Collection, Boosts Agility,” May 2012.
5
Sean Corcoran, “Embedding Social Media Into The Marketing Mix,” Forrester Research Inc., April 2011.
6
Microsoft case study, “Infosys Uses Social Media to Engage Employees and Increase Competitive Edge,” May 2012.
7
Sunil Padmanabh, Jeff Woods, “How Social Computing Can Streamline the ERP Life Cycle,” Gartner Inc., July 2011.
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Building a social computing strategy
establishing a vision, and defining a roadmap. This paper lists additional resources to which you can refer
in the “Resources” section.
2
The value of social computing
Social computing is enabling collaboration on a scale that’s never before been realized or possible.
Employees are forming virtual teams across organizational boundaries to get their work done.
Organizations are integrating with their supply chains and partners to more discreetly manage their
pipelines and enhance the services they provide to their customers. In addition to their employees and
partners, organizations are also connecting directly with their customers to influence the design of their
products and services. This section describes a few of the many ways in which an organization can realize
value from social computing initiatives.
2.1 Finding the person who knows the answer
In today’s workplace, information is fragmented among many people. Organizations build document
repositories to collect and share information. Email and instant messaging tools speed the transfer of
information, but in a typical organization solving a problem still means finding the person who knows the
answer. Simply identifying the right person can be challenging. Searching for that person requires
contacting people who know people who know the person you need to talk to.
Social computing in the enterprise reduces the time and cost required to find the right person. A social
organization offers a profile service to its people, which is a place for them to publish their expert
knowledge and organizational information. People can add their specific identities, skills, expertise, and
even hobbies to their profiles, and can provide links to published content and to current projects. By
integrating a person’s social identity into this aspect of social computing, an organization can drastically
reduce the amount of effort it takes to find just the right person.
8
2.2 Working within communities to get things done
An organization can realize value from a social computing strategy by targeting collaboration across
boundaries. Social computing in the enterprise builds business communities that cut across departments
and geographies. Within these communities, people who have common interests can find and learn about
each other more quickly. People can also see where others are located, whether they are available, and
how to best reach them.
Such networks of communities enable people to quickly find and tap into the right skill sets, talent, and
knowledge regardless of where in the world that knowledge is located. Even people who are widely
8
Paul Manikas, “The Value of Social Computing in Product Development,” MSDN, June 2011.
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Building a social computing strategy
separated by geographical boundaries—or even organizational boundaries, in the case of customer or
partner virtual teams—feel that they are engaged in an endeavor where their efforts make a difference.
9
2.3 Increasing organizational memory
Most of the information that is needed to run an organization every day is inside the heads of its
employees. This tacit knowledge is crucial to ongoing operations, but when people move to different
teams or leave the organization, they take it with them. When someone joins a team, the team slows
down to help the new person get oriented and to compensate for that person’s low initial productivity.
Social computing lets organizations preserve tacit knowledge and share it through various communities. It
also gives new team members instant access to documented knowledge and to previous communications,
team-member profiles, and timelines of social interactions that have occurred.
10
2.4 Attracting and retaining talent
One of the most valuable features of a business environment is the opportunity for employees to learn
and develop professionally. Business communities and corporate social networks that facilitate effective
collaboration across the organization provide a stimulating environment in which people can learn from
others and share ideas in a natural way. In a social organization, communities are fluid and self-governing;
that is, communities form around the relevant interests and objectives of employees, who can choose to
what degree they want to participate.
These kinds of learning opportunities and dynamic channels of engagement attract top talent. And
employees are more likely to stay longer at an organization that provides means and ways for enhanced
participation and stronger engagement within the organization.
2.5 Improving sales and service
Marketing professionals need to understand what people are saying about their products and services
and broaden the reach of their message. Sales professionals need to easily keep track of the network of
people and business events that are relevant to closing deals. Service professionals need to identify and
resolve customers’ issues through an ever-increasing array of communication channels. Basically, there are
two core capabilities that social computing can influence within sales and service: listening for brand
sentiment and amplifying an organization’s message.
Socially adept consumers will use social networks to air their opinions publicly and challenge
organizations to listen and respond quickly. These social networks provide marketing organizations with
new insights into consumer perceptions of brand and the product and services that are offered. Social
computing in the enterprise should provide tools that help monitor and analyze the conversations that
are being conducted on public networks. At the same time, a social computing strategy should provide
9
The Social Organization, “The Economic Value of Communities,” June 2010.
Michael Fitzgerald, “Why Social Computing Aids Knowledge Management,” CIO.com June 2008
10
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Building a social computing strategy
the tools that are needed to communicate not only with those consumers, but also internally and with
partners and vendors.
Marketing strategies can benefit greatly from the use of social media as an additional channel to
broadcast announcements, messaging, and offers. By using a combination of public and enterprise social
computing strategies, an organization can deliver the right message to the right customers at the right
time, and monitor the impact of that message.
3
11
The Microsoft vision for social
computing
Throughout the world, we’re seeing value creation and consumption shifting from individuals to the
collective, organizing structures moving from closed hierarchies to open networks, task coordination
evolving from top-down to bottom-up, and knowledge transfer shifting from a linear distribution to
dynamic participation. In this new world of social collaboration, organizations are re-examining how they
operate and are looking to capitalize on the new efficiencies of agility and robustness. These efficiencies
can be gained by sharing knowledge, working together, accelerating learning, and providing a connected
experience that empower groups of people to get things done.
Participation and sharing are vitally important for any enterprise that
wants to maintain its collective memory. Participation must be simple
and rewarding, with embedded social gestures that ebb and flow
throughout the systems that people use every day. Social
collaboration should be more than just a place where one goes to be
social. It should be part of the daily working environment. By
providing insightful awareness, gratifying participation, and preserving
communal knowledge, social collaboration helps individuals enhance
their experience and enables the organization to create an embedded
culture of sharing. When social collaboration is deeply embedded in
services and applications, the line between consuming and creating
blurs, and Share becomes the new Save.
To enable people with similar interests to find each other, easily form affiliations, and work toward
common goals, Microsoft is creating experiences that draw people in and encourage them to become
highly capable of crossing geographic and organizational boundaries to get things done. We’re building
social experiences that help people easily create groups in which disparate social exchanges are
transformed into a contained, persistent space. Just as individuals manage and cultivate identities, groups
will have identities that can be created, shaped, and discovered. Group communications, whether
asynchronous or in real time, will be natural, fluid, and integrated, providing a seamless and connected
experience, regardless of application, device, or location.
11
George Anderson, “CIO considerations for CRM in a social media world,” Microsoft, June 2012.
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Building a social computing strategy
Social collaboration also puts people at the center of computing and
ensures that employees, partners, and customers can connect with
the right people and information. To realize our vision, we’re taking a
two-pronged approach: providing the connected experiences that
12
people want and the connected platform that IT needs.
Connected experiences. We believe that social computing should be
a natural part of how we work and seamlessly woven into the tools
that people use every day. Social must be easy, frictionless, and
contextual. For example, during a conversation in a newsfeed, it
should be easy to escalate into a private instant message in which
adding voice and video is frictionless. Seamlessly integrated tools should let participants follow up via
email and circle back to the original conversation with updates, all while the conversational context
follows them across each tool, regardless of where they are or what device they have with them.
Connected platform. Social computing must be integrated into a connected platform that IT can
confidently rely on to manage and secure the information and experiences that it provides. Information in
social networks is valuable intellectual property, so the platform must have sophisticated security,
management, and compliance capabilities that let IT provide the connected experiences that people need
without getting in their way.
A social fabric connects these
experiences and the platform
over which they flow. To provide
this fabric, we acquired Yammer
and are integrating the unique
capabilities of Yammer,
SharePoint, and Office to provide a seamlessly connected experience that people will love. The peoplecentric paradigm of Yammer and the document-centric models of SharePoint and Office is a powerful and
complementary combination. Today, Yammer and SharePoint are connected through Web Parts and
Open Graph capabilities. We’re developing deeper connections between the three that will involve
integrated document management and feed aggregation, plus unified identity. We’re also taking
advantage of our new 90-day release cycle for SharePoint Online and Office 365 to add new capabilities
that will let us provide connected experiences that combine social, collaboration, messaging, and unified
13
communications.
It's an exciting time in enterprise computing. We’re convinced that social collaboration will play a key role
in everyone’s future. It will transform daily work—how we all manage customer relationships, analyze
data, make decisions, finish projects, share content, discover people and information, and create
12
Jared Spataro, “Putting Social to Work,” Microsoft, November 2012,
http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2012/11/12/putting-social-to-work.aspx
13
Jared Spataro, Jeff Teper, Scott Guthrie, and David Sacks, “SharePoint Conference 2012 Opening Keynote,” Microsoft, November
2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLsIjvIyAxo
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Building a social computing strategy
relationships between people and things. Integrating social aspects into all of these activities makes work
more enjoyable, efficient, and innovative. Providing a platform where these connected experiences
happen regardless of place and device will transform personal computing into interpersonal computing.
Social collaboration will shift the focus of technology to human interactions and interdependencies. We
believe that an organization that provides these connected experiences will transform itself into a
pervasively social enterprise where groups of people can work together seamlessly, easily, and enjoyably
to do great work.
4
Creating a social computing strategy
Creating an organization in which social computing is pervasive, one that provides a place where people
can work together to achieve common goals, requires more than just a few enabling software tools; it
takes planning. By now, most organizations have experimented with or have invested in enterprise social
computing. Given the increased demand for ever-evolving social capabilities, it is critical for organizations
to provide the right mix of social computing strategies, values, and technologies that address longer term
business needs.
Although tactical responses may address some of these needs, many organizations now struggle with
proliferating approaches and adoption challenges that are caused by the lack of an overarching social
computing vision, strategy, and corresponding architectural plan. A study conducted by the Altimeter
Group found several common patterns in failed social computing attempts.
•
•
•
14
Adoption drop-off. Initial enthusiasm and usage was followed by a slow decline, and ultimately only
a core group of users continued to use the social computing tool. Altimeter found that “the reality of
everyday work pushed enterprise social network use to the side, causing people to pull away from
their social activities and return back to their original work and communication patterns.”
Isolated success. Usually only a few departments strongly adopted the social tools that were
deployed. IT, marketing, sales, corporate communications, and support departments typically had the
highest adoption rates, while “other departments found it difficult to adapt the enterprise social
network to their specific needs.”
Cultural and organizational blockers. Adoption of new social computing tools was hindered by
cultural confusion and a lack of executive engagement as managers assumed that the new tools
would be used for personal communication or nonbusiness-related content and would negatively
affect productivity. Organizations that lacked the social business maturity required to realize the full
value of their investments were unable to “understand, appreciate, and leverage the enterprise social
network.”
Given these common failures, organizations that encounter business demand for social computing should
consider moving toward a more strategic approach by developing a social computing strategy that ties
benefits with business objectives, establishes a vision, and defines an architectural roadmap. We at
Microsoft consider the following to be the most important components of any social strategy.
12
Charlene Li, Alan Webber, and Jon Cifuentes, “Making the Business Case for Enterprise Social Networks,” Altimeter Group, February
2012.
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Building a social computing strategy
•
•
•
•
•
Defined social objectives and targeted communities that will be engaged
Clear executive sponsorship and cultural willingness of an organization
Aligned resources that support social computing in the fabric of the way work is done
Explicitly defined, goal-oriented plans and roadmaps
Flexible software tools that support the plan and strategy
As you can see, creating an effective social strategy with the right components is key to a successful social
computing initiative. To support this awareness, Microsoft has created a Social Strategy and Planning
Method that helps organizations work through the creation of a social strategy to achieve maximum
business value.
Figure 1. Social Strategy and Planning Method
The remainder of this document discusses how to create a social computing strategy that is based on this
method.
4.1 Strategy rationalization
When researching this paper, the authors spoke with an executive from a large logistics company. This
executive advised that although the implementation of a virtual water cooler was met with strong
negative sentiments, connecting social feedback mechanisms into task management to help with
optimization and exception handling scenarios immediately created a connection to the organization’s
core key performance indicators (KPIs).
For Electronic Arts, a leading interactive game company, connecting people and ideas was the core
motivation for their social computing initiative.
13
15
Microsoft case study, “Electronic Arts Embraces Social Networking to Create Better Games on Tight Timelines.”
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Building a social computing strategy
In both cases, social computing supports mission-critical goals. However, the implementation focus and
strategy for each organization were very different. Such differences will typically exist between industries
but also between departments and because of local legal and cultural constraints. A marketer will want to
connect customer campaigns to social Internet channels, whereas a sales team will likely consider the
existing CRM investments as a good starting point for social augmentation. Whenever the scope of a
social computing initiative is sufficiently broad, it is possible to maximize business benefits by building
solutions across internal and external functions and boundaries, as in the example of the world’s most
attentive airport.
16
Defining the scope of a social initiative helps craft a focused and effective vision. A vision provides
aspirational statements of positive outcomes that will come from investing in social computing. The vision
lets leaders articulate their belief in the importance of social computing to their organization, which
directly addresses the key component of executive sponsorship and cultural willingness. It gives the
targeted communities the confidence that top managers support the initiative and believe it’s important
to the organization.
A social computing vision statement can take many forms, from a paragraph of text to a presentation
slide to an envisioning document that includes a business case. Regardless of its form, the vision
statement should clearly define who will benefit from the initiative, describe the social activities and
behaviors that are desired, and detail the benefits that the organization hopes to gain from it. In the
following example vision statement, note that memorable terms and images complement the words and
help associate the vision statement with the social computing domain.
Figure 2. Example vision statement
14
Microsoft case study, “Airport Loyalty Program Serves Travelers, Increases Online Revenues by 45 Percent.”
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Building a social computing strategy
4.2 Social valuation
As a recent addition to the collaboration and communication capabilities of organizations, social
computing is being studied from many perspectives, including business opportunity and value, risk and
cost, adoption and demographics, and technology and architectural alignment. Because social computing
is relatively new and opinions vary as to its value, organizations should start by understanding the
targeted benefits of social computing and tying them to the organization’s business objectives.
To help facilitate discussions that focus on the business value of social computing within the enterprise,
the following table lists potential benefits to consider. Almost every successful social computing initiative
is tied to at least one of these benefit areas. An initiative that provides collaborative business communities
probably gains from every benefit area and capability impact listed in the table.
Table 1. Fundamental Benefits Model for Social Computing
Benefit area
Capability impact
Access to information
and knowledge
Improved ability to access and interact with information and knowledge assets
Access to the network
Improved ability to access and interact with people, groups of people,
communities, and the entire network
Connectedness
Improved sense of connection with information, individuals, groups,
communities, and the whole organization
Information sharing
and reach
Improved ability to share information with people, groups of people,
communities, and the entire network
Network engagement
and knowledge
capture
Improved ability to engage employees, co-workers, and business partners and
to get feedback about people, content, and ideas, as well as capture valuable
knowledge
Insights
Improved insights and ideas that help the organization accomplish its goals
Different organizations will focus on different benefit areas, but the key is to tie the targeted benefits to
your organization’s business objectives and then to tie the business objectives to the business drivers that
affect the organization.
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Building a social computing strategy
Figure 3. Benefits, objectives, and business drivers
Business drivers explain why an investment is made. Although they are outside the organization’s direct
control, they’re the reason why senior managers believe an initiative will have an impact in a given time
frame. An example of a business driver might be the recent lack of qualified job applicants. Objectives
define the end state at which an investment is aimed. For example, an objective may be to reduce
employee attrition and to attract new talent. Benefits describe what will happen in the business if it
achieves its objectives. For example, if the organization achieves its objective of reducing employee
attrition, it will realize the benefit of an improved sense of community among its employees. This benefit
will be measured by regular feedback from a semiannual employee satisfaction survey. The following
graphic ties together these concepts and illustrates the links between benefits, objectives, and business
drivers. It is based on the Benefits Dependency Network (BDN) created by Cranfield University in the
United Kingdom.
17
Figure 4. Links among benefits, objectives, and business drivers, based on the Cranfield BDN
17
Joe Peppard, John Ward, Elizabeth Daniel, “Managing the Realization of Business Benefits from IT Investments,” MIS Quarterly
Executive, March 2007.
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Building a social computing strategy
4.3 Business transformation planning
From the list of key components required in a social computing strategy (presented in the beginning of
this section), you can see that it’s important not only to provide a goal-oriented plan but also to identify
target communities. Simply put, a social computing roadmap provides such a goal-oriented plan,
identifies the target communities, and designs an approach for achieving the vision.
The first step in creating a roadmap is to identify usage scenarios and the people who work within them.
Segmenting people into personas is an ideal way to understand their needs and characteristics.
18
It is
important to understand that, as people adopt the social way of working, they are likely to experience
shifts in their usage patterns. In any new social environment, individuals start out as consumers (or lurkers,
in the terminology of open Internet communities) before moving to a more active usage pattern.
Typically, the following phases occur in the evolution from a hungry information worker caterpillar to a
social community butterfly.
•
•
•
•
•
Consume. Weak connection to the community, success is when something is found that’s useful,
largely monitoring incoming information
Convey. Early blogs, microblogs, and posts to express and share interests, opinions, and trends
Connect. Discover and share with others who have a common interest
Cooperate. Form affiliations and align actions toward a common goal
Co-create. Shape a joint solution or creation
It is noteworthy that throughout this journey, the patterns shift from individuals to communities to
groups. These steps in the social spectrum are connected and co-exist in time. The attitude and role of
any participant will be different across many contexts; on a new project a person might demonstrate the
consume pattern, but on a more mature project they might demonstrate the cooperate pattern. Creating
personas to understand the various individuals within the targeted communities will provide valuable
input into the creation of an adoption strategy for moving individuals and communities through the
evolutionary cycles.
After you understand the target community and how the individuals may shift their usage patterns over
time, it’s common to create future-state usage scenarios. These scenarios help you bring the vision to life
and assess the people, business, and technology capabilities that are required to enable them. They also
help you identify the gaps between the current state and future state of the capabilities. The following
example usage scenario is based on the vision that was provided earlier.
18
Marc Ashbrook, “Persona Analysis for Initiative Planning,” Microsoft, 2012.
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Building a social computing strategy
Social collaborative creation
Contoso’s engineers and scientists are typically power users who are
eager to try new ways of working more efficiently. They’re somewhat
mobile; their project work and knowledge transfer involves traveling
between offices in the United States and abroad. Many Contoso
engineers and scientists participate in information exchange within
groups with horizontal organizational affiliation but with semi-formal
expectations regarding knowledge contribution to the organization. To reduce information loss and
security risks associated with email, Contoso has encouraged its engineers and scientists to start
working inside of community spaces that are related to cross-organizational topics.
In this scenario, Contoso’s technical staff can exchange information inside a long-lived community of
more than 300 members who are dedicated to alternative energy academic research (AEAR). John, a
senior mechanical engineer in San Francisco, is the designated community lead. John belongs to
multiple communities, so to interact with a given community he either enters through a community
portal or responds to an alert on his mobile device or laptop.
When he enters the AEAR community site, John notices a lively discussion from the previous evening in
Australia on recent solar panel advances originated by Sheila, a materials scientist of good repute. John
also sees that Sheila is soliciting input from the community on a new solar panel specification that takes
advantage of the advances, which he is also interested in. So he decides to follow Sheila, the
specification document, and the team site in which it is located.
Back on his home page, John sees a consolidated view of activity across the community and other sites
to which he belongs and is following, as well as the people, documents, and tags he’s following.
Although John is not following all the members of Sheila’s team working on the document, he sees any
changes made to it in his activity feed and ends up assigning a team member to provide detailed
feedback as it advances through the review cycle.
When you have established the scenarios and identified the required capabilities, it’s critical to assess the
current state of the computing environment to determine a capability baseline, and then to assess the
identified opportunities for current and future capabilities: that is, to perform a gap analysis.
In addition to defining the usage scenarios and identifying the existing capability gaps, it is important for
any social initiative to evaluate the current organizational culture. Looking at the culture lets you plan
ahead for predictable factors such as generational shifts, availability of technology in the workplace, and
the targeted community’s expectations driven by the phenomenon known as the Consumerization of IT.
19
To allow employees to benefit from and participate in exchanges through social computing, organizations
should establish policies and incentives and pay close attention to possible disincentives that would affect
the motivation to share. Thinking through the possible issues can lead to mitigation and adoption
strategies such as gamification, social rewards such as badges, and employee recognition outside the
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Microsoft’s Viewpoint on the Consumerization of IT.
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system. These types of strategies will not only help mitigate adoption blockers for the new social
computing initiative but can add additional value by addressing existing challenges that predate the
initiative.
Finally, the key output of the strategy work is a future-state architectural roadmap, typically a diagram that
shows major initiatives over many years. In line with the previous vision and scenario examples, the
following figure shows the Contoso Social Computing Roadmap.
Figure 5. The Contoso Social Computing Roadmap
5 Conclusion
When the social computing vision, strategy, and roadmap are in place, it’s important to perform detailed
initiative planning, piloting, and implementation. In some cases, a proof-of-concept and additional, more
detailed business case work may be required for an initiative. In all cases, organizations should invest in
change management, training, communications, and other guidance appropriate for the audience, culture,
and organizational structure and capability. Organizations should also establish a program to track and
measure adoption and value.
Successful enterprise social computing initiatives don’t happen by chance. They almost always result from
sound, step-by-step planning. To avoid adoption drop-off or isolated, transitory success and to overcome
cultural and organizational hurdles, a social computing initiative needs to build a business case to engage
users and to generate organizational support. A successful social computing initiative usually starts with a
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Social computing in the enterprise
Building a social computing strategy
well-defined vision, identifies potential users, understands how they work, and follows a roadmap to fulfill
its vision.
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6 Resources
6.1 Microsoft websites
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Innovate with Social: Improving Collaboration and Connections in the Enterprise
http://www.microsoft.com/enterprise/events/innovatewithsocial/default.aspx#fbid=yc8qVPg9cA_
Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Social Computing Resource Center:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/gg987020.aspx
Microsoft Research: Social Computing
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/groups/scg/
Microsoft SharePoint Social Computing Team Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/spsocial/
Enterprise Collaboration and Social Computing in SharePoint Server 2010
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee263906.aspx
Overview of Social Computing in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2010/OSP211
The Architecture Journal: Enterprise Social Computing
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/architecture/aa699425
Implementing Social Computing at Microsoft
www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=23586
6.2 Microsoft blogs
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Chris Bortlik’s blog
http://blogs.technet.com/b/cbortlik/
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Social computing in the enterprise
Building a social computing strategy
7
Collaboration Capability Value
Measurement
7.1 Concept References
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Clark, William, David W. Cearley, and Avivah Litan, “Context-Aware Computing and Social Media Are
Transforming the User Experience.” Gartner Inc., February 2012.
www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=1916115
Rozwell, Carol, “2012 Strategic Road Map for Business Gets Social.” Gartner Inc., January 2012.
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=227646
Martens, China, “Emerging Trends: Social Collaboration Is Poised To Accelerate ERP Business Processes.”
Forrester Research Inc., December 2011.
www.forrester.com/Emerging+Trends+Social+Collaboration+Is+Poised+To+Accelerate+ERP+Busines
s+Processes/quickscan/-/E-RES60626
Microsoft case study, “Healthcare Solutions Provider Eases Customer Data Collection, Boosts Agility,”
May 2012. www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=710000000514
Sean Corcoran, “Embedding Social Media Into The Marketing Mix,” Forrester Research Inc., April 2011.
http://www.forrester.com/Embedding+Social+Media+Into+The+Marketing+Mix/fulltext/-/ERES58795?objectid=RES58795
Microsoft case study, “Infosys Uses Social Media to Engage Employees and Increase Competitive Edge,”
May 2012. www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=710000000622
Padmanabh, Sunil, and Jeff Woods, “How Social Computing Can Streamline the ERP Life Cycle.”
Gartner Inc., July 2011. www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=214097
Paul Manikas, “The Value of Social Computing in Product Development,” MSDN, June 2011.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/discretemanufacturing/archive/2011/06/27/the-value-of-social-computingin-product-development.aspx
The Social Organization, “The Economic Value of Communities,” June 2010.
www.thesocialorganization.com/2010/06/the-economic-value-of-communities.html
Michael Fitzgerald, “Why Social Computing Aids Knowledge Management,” CIO.com, June 2008.
www.cio.com/article/395113/Why_Social_Computing_Aids_Knowledge_Management
Li, Charlene with Alan Webber and Jon Cifuentes, “Making the Business Case for Enterprise Social
Networks.” Altimeter Group, February 2012. www.altimetergroup.com/research/reports/making-thebusiness-case-for-enterprise-social-networks
Microsoft case study, “Electronic Arts Embraces Social Networking to Create Better Games on Tight
Timelines,” www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?casestudyid=4000004267
Microsoft case study, “Airport Loyalty Program Serves Travelers, Increases Online Revenues by 45
Percent,” www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=710000000308
Peppard, Joe, John Ward, and Elizabeth Daniel. “Managing the Realization of Business Benefits from IT
Investments.” MIS Quarterly Executive, March 2007. www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/dinamiccontent/research/documents/peppardwarddaniel07.pdf
Microsoft’s viewpoint on the Consumerization of IT,
www.microsoft.com/enterprise/viewpoints/consumerization/default.aspx#fbid=P2R1V9Dp5I2
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